Updated 7:27 pm, Thursday, April 18, 2013

Each startup had six minutes to make their pitches to a theater full of potential investors, members of the press and industry colleagues. Their challenge was to explain why their startup was worthy of investment.

“It was a great day — inspiring companies, all strong ideas here,” said Graham Weston, chairman and co-founder of Rackspace Hosting Inc. and a major booster of the local tech community. He described the program as a “crash course” for startups.

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“I think that this event is something that really helps foster the startup community in San Antonio by bringing some of the best startup teams in the country here,” he said.

The presentations came at the end of an intense and exclusive accelerator program called TechStars, which aims to help take startups and shape them into companies that are prepared to seek investment and be better-positioned for long-term success. The San Antonio branch of TechStars, called TechStars Cloud, focuses on startups that use cloud-computing services to power their technologies.

TechStars also has accelerator programs in six other cities — including Seattle, Boston and London — for all sorts of tech startups and runs similar programs for Microsoft, Nike and Kaplan.

The accelerator offers an intense three-month course for promising startups, providing them with some funding to get off the ground and access to experienced mentors who help them shape their products and their pitches. If their startup is accepted into the program, the entrepreneurs move to the program's host city for three months.

Hundreds of startups applied for the opportunity to be a part of the program in San Antonio, said Jason Seats, managing director of TechStars Cloud. Only 12 startups were accepted, including one from Austin and two from San Antonio.

“It's harder to get into this than ... Harvard,” Weston said.

An executive with one of the two San Antonio-based startups who made it into the program said it and its mentors helped his company prepare for prime time.

“This was actually, like, getting into the foundation and nuts and bolts of our business and helping us reconstruct,” said Frederick “Suizo” Mendler, a co-founder and chief operating officer of TrueAbility. The company has developed a system that allows tech firms to test the IT skills of potential employees. “(Our mentors) actually got in and spent hours and hours with us, learning our business and helping us fine-tune.”

All 12 of the companies attended Demo Day at the Empire, Seats said, though only 11 presented. The technologies they showcased ranged from cybersecurity solutions to a new social network that allows users to easily build and share short animations.

The presentations were part Macworld keynote (a solitary presenter stood onstage with just a PowerPoint presentation to explain how awesome their product was), part b-grade convention (cheesy musical that opened for every presenter), part high school theater (a couple of presenters had to ask for their line offstage), and part ask (almost every presenter included a slide talking about how much money they wanted to raise).

A raucous round of applause followed every presentation.

The event also drew some brass from City Hall just a few blocks away. Mayor Julián Castro offered brief remarks at the beginning of the second half of the program. City Manager Sheryl Sculley and District 1 Councilman Diego Bernal were also spotted mingling in the intermission-time crowd.

“I just checked in here and it turns out I'm the mayor,” Castro joked. As the crowd responded with laughter and hoots, he added, “They gave me that joke.”